Working Out The Kinks

Excellent four CD set rounding up guitar supremo Chris Spedding's time with RAK Records between 1975-1980. Includes the hit single 'Motor Bikin' which reached #14 in the UK charts in 1975. Also features one of the first UK Punk singles, Chris's 'Pogo Dancing' which he recorded with The Vibrators. Disc One is his self-titled debut for RAK which featured the aforesaid 'Motor Bikin" plus the 'Guitar Jamboree', 'Jump In My Car' and 'New Girl In The Neighborhood' singles and was produced by Mickie Most. The second CD contains the Hurt album from 1977, produced by Chris Thomas, and which features the 'Get Outa My Pagoda' and 'Silver Bullet' singles. Guitar Graffiti is Disc Three, self-produced and featuring the 'Video Life', 'Bored Bored' and 'Gunfight' singles. The final disc is the I'm Not Like Everybody Else album from 1980. The booklet features detailed liner notes by 70's expert Phil Hendricks and comes with pictures of all the relevant singles. Each of the CD's comes in a card wallet depicting the original LP artwork.

Live 1966 is essentially an expanded edition of Raw 'n Alive at the Cellar, Chicago 1966!, a 1994 archival release that unearthed 13 tracks the Shadows of Knight recorded in their hometown stomping ground of the Cellar. Live 1966 boasts three extra tracks, rejiggers the running order to approximate the group's two sets, and has better fidelity and artwork all sterling additions to what is one of best live American rock & roll recordings of the mid-'60s. Granted, there's not much competition in this category. Apart from a handful of British Invasion souvenirs (the most notable were by the Rolling Stones and the Kinks), live albums weren't common among rockers until the '70s, and the tapes that make up Live 1966 weren't intended to be a proper release: they're just tapes Paul Sampson, the owner of the Cellar, happened to make while the Shadows of Knight headlined at his club.

2007 four CD retrospective that highlights their years spent with EMI Records, 1963-66 featuring seven previously unreleased recordings. The band was started by Mike Hugg and Manfred. They were Jazz musicians but it didn't pay the bills so they decided to form an R&B band. They recruited a group of similarly under-employed Jazz players and then held auditions for a singer or "shouter" as it was described to Paul Jones who eventually got the job. The line up was completed by Mike Vickers and Tom McGuiness. Jones's harmonica gave the group their distinct sound and they soon became one of Britain's leading bands of the '60s. They hit the top 10 regularly with hits like '5-4-3-2-1', 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy', 'Sha La La', Come Tomorrow, 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now' and 'Pretty Flamingo'. Booklet contains sessionography and illustrated discography. 97 tracks.

Vocalist Graham Bonnet fronts this group consisting of drummer extraordinaire Cozy Powell, guitarists Ray Fenwick and Jan Akkerman, with Chris Cozens on keyboards, and guests like Terry Pack and Mo Foster on bass. The album begins awkwardly with a bit of bombast called "Hit and Run" but gets more hard pop with "Always," a drum beat that Roxy Music utilized on Manifesto, and that Elton John chose for "Healing Hands" under a melody that sounds totally derivative.

Perry Ford, John Carter and Ken Lewis were an integral part of the British music scene from the early 1960s onwards, guesting on iconic recordings by The Kinks, The Who, Tom Jones and Sandie Shaw et al. Under the collective guise as The Ivy League, they became the backbone of the British pop chart, working with Mike Leander, Ivor Raymonde, Les Reed and Shel Talmy, and penning hits for The Fortunes and the Rockin Berries.

This collection retailed for $100.00 when first released in 1993. There has never been a better collection of Rock Classics - probably never will be, what with the difficulties of gaining clearances and gathering the best materials. The seven CDs are divided into the years covered: 1967-69; 1969-70; 1971-73; 1973-77; 1977-82; 1982-86; 1986-92. Enclosed in each CD is a booklet with a capsule history of the music and a complete artist/title list. All of which contain from 15 to 17 tracks, for a total of 110.

Four-hour, 3CD anthology of hard-edged British R&B from the genre's pivotal year. Featuring hit singles, key album tracks, cult classics and some fabulous previously unreleased recordings. While 1963 belonged to the Merseyside-led beat boom, the following year saw the emergence of homegrown R&B as market leaders The Rolling Stones were joined on the Thames Delta by a host of equally young, raw and enthusiastic British blues-hounds. The Pretty Things, The Yardbirds and Manfred Mann would all come to national prominence, but many other putative king bees - The Artwoods, Downliners Sect, early Ronnie Wood outfit The Birds - would have to settle for a more localised audience. Other hard-up heroes trying to pay the rent included The Who (as The High Numbers), Steve Marriott (as leader of The Moments) and Rod 'The Mod' Stewart (with The Hoochie Coochie Men), who all gave early notice of their developing talent to an indifferent world.